


It was a quick realization for it all to take nearly a century.

by WeShallSee



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catholic Bucky Barnes, Diary/Journal, Friends to Lovers, Gay Bucky Barnes, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish Steve Rogers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, everythings fuck shit and buckys an amateur poet, lol also because im ignoring infinity war bc i love myself, only because im not gonna try and make this perfectly canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 06:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17116424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeShallSee/pseuds/WeShallSee
Summary: "The issue, dear diary, is not whether or not I have done something wrong: I know I have.  I’ve gone on dates with perfectly nice girls who look just fine and many of them treat me great, and I still went and fell in love with Steve Rogers instead of any of them. I didn’t do anything, I was just a perfectly good friend who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when Cupid flew his smarmy self around."Bucky meets a certain extraordinarily reckless guy. Luckily, he has all of eighty-six years to decide what to do about it.





	It was a quick realization for it all to take nearly a century.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Jane Buchanan Barnes, Jane Buchanan, Bucky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16917270) by [ChaoticWeevil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticWeevil/pseuds/ChaoticWeevil). 



> me selling out, part 3

(March 10th, 1932)

Dear Journal (but we all know it’s a diary, pops),

Today was the date of my 15th birthday. Pop bought me this piece of junk to record my life in it. I think he’s trying to pry into my perfectly reasonable life choices.

POPS, IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND DISRESPECTING MY PRIVACY AS A YOUNG MAN: I have been doing my English homework, and I have a fine vocabulary, and I do not cuss too much. I cuss a perfect fucking amount. No, I do not yell too much. I yell a reasonable amount for someone in my difficult situation of being the handsomest boy in my class. You try sitting through fifty dumbass innuendos from fifty different guys the moment you give a perfectly nice gal your jacket. Yelling’s practically required.

I have also decided to not write any more in this book and instead scribble in the pages so I can daydream without anyone bothering me to do the dishes, and if someone tells me I’m being a liar and just scribbling, it will prove they were snooping in my personals, POPS. So there.

Best (I mean it, really),

James Buchanan Barnes

 

 

(April 3rd, 1932)

Dear Diary (calling it like it is, might as well),

It has been almost a month since my last entry, and no sign of pop calling the cavalry on me. I would feel just fine with not writing in this, but something has happened. (Jesus, ‘things happen’ all the damn time! Been too long since I’ve gotten the sense knocked into me.)

But something has happened, and I need to write it out ASAP because I’m dying to tell, but I can’t figure out how to tell the story without the gestures needed. Pop says Barnes kids talk with their hands, and that is very, very true. But using my hand to talk with a pen doesn’t count. I gotta talk dynamic to talk right.

For God’s sake, something happened!!!! I’ve met the smallest boy I’ve ever met, who is a whole year younger than me and so much meaner. So much meaner. I saw everything he did from the grocer’s shop at the opposite corner.

There are older guys who stand at the other side of the street, right by the alley (because they’re not fucking creative). Big hulking guys, seniors, all on the school wrestling team. And they spend their time throwing rocks at the old cat and hollering at at each other and grabbing at girls skirts and etc. etc. Ma calls them a bit too fresh for their own good. I call them the Bastards, and this little ice chip of a guy called them that too. After he threw a punch, that is.

Diary, he must have weighed seventy pounds soaking wet, he looked papery enough that a stiff wind could have blown him right off his feet, and he punched one of the Bastards. He got the snot kicked out of him in less than a second (wasn’t surprised, but I was a little disappointed) and when I went over to help, he acted all haughty about it. Said he didn’t need no doe-eyes from me.

But then I bought him a carrot and told him that his nose was bleeding something awful and he shut up real quick. Let me walk him home and everything. I don’t think he was haughty in the bad way. There should be different words for that.

Just checked my English homework again (Diary, I must confess, because this is a diary and confessions are the only interesting parts of diaries: I only do the readings. The English teacher’s breath smells like sticky warm milk and his hands are so clammy I can see my reflection in them. I like to avoid having to hand him papers.) The fella I met was acting justifiably righteous. He said his name was Steven Rogers, and he lives just down the street from me (!!!!!!).

He’s got very blonde hair that I thought looked handsome, but he didn’t take kindly to being called that. Boys don’t like being complimented by other boy’s, as I’ve been quickly finding out. Don’t see why. A compliment’s a compliment. But either way, he was still bruised and the blood had dried on his face like it was curdled, so he probably thought I was just trying to be a jerk about the whole ordeal.

Really, though, his hair makes him look like a celebrity.

Diary, I will keep you updated about this new actor on the scene. I want to see if he’ll punch the Bastards again, hopefully further away from a brick wall.

Must leave, ma wants help with the siblings. (Side note: never gonna have children that need pestering to take baths! If I cannot trust my kids to wash their own scrapes and cuts, I will let them become infected and die! No wasting hot water by splashing around all furious about having to take a bath, for Christ’s sake!!!)

Clearly not meant to ever marry and have kids,

James Buchanan

 

 

(May 26th, 1932)

Diary,

Won’t write much. I’ve invited the boy over for dinner.

He says everyone calls him Just Steve (or more often, ‘runt of the litter.’ The guy’s got rotten luck when it comes to height), so I guess he’s not fond of being called ‘Steven’ all the time.

Also, for the record: he would have better grades then me if our teachers weren’t all bastards who don’t excuse many sick days. Steve’s smart as hell and logic-smart instead of book-smart, and I think that’s better in every last way.

He punched the Bastards again last week! I can barely stop myself from boasting about him to ma. Can’t hardly believe this boy, diary.

James Buchanan

 

 

(August 15th, 1933)

Dear Diary,

I lost this old thing for a whole damn year! Either that, or one sister or another stole it. I’ll hold interrogations at dinner. My bet’s that Becca read it cover to cover.

I’m sixteen now. It’s real nice, I can tell ma I’m out with some nice girl and instead stay over at Steve’s place for nearly the whole night.

Speaking of, Steve’s momma is a real sweetheart, works down by the hospital and taught me how to sew up cuts and gashes and things when I was complaining about not knowing how to patch up her boy. I doubt Steve’s ever going to get himself hurt that bad, but still: I can fix up a knife wound now. And I fixed the holes in Steve’s nice shirt.

And I don’t go by James now, or James Buchanan, or James Barnes, or any of that fluffy shit. Steve’s taken to calling me Bucky. Told him that I didn’t much like being called all the names that make me sound like the plainest guy on the face of the earth, so he made a fuss about it all and made up a whole list of nicknames. He makes a fuss about a lot of things. I might like it, if he wasn’t so damn happy to go and punch his problems away.

Just kidding. I like that too. But the guy’s gonna get the snot kicked out of him too many times in one year for someone in his state of health.

(On that note: Pa says to call the health issues ’complications’ instead. I say there ain’t nothing complicated about other folks needing to shut the hell up about Steve not being some prime example of the human race or whatever they’re on about lately. Skeeves me out.

Steve’s kind, he’s participating in school real well, and all that while he has to deal with the nastiest medicines in the wide world and doctors that crow about him like he’s not in the room.

And he’s a pretty picture, all blonde and blue and she’s got these ruddy cheeks whenever she’s out in the cold or the heat or anything in between. All patriotic. Dunno why I wrote all that out. But either way, I don’t quite see how all that doesn’t add up to someone wonderful.)

Anyway, he nicknamed me and nicknamed me until we both settled on Bucky. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get away with it at home, but at school, everyone already calls me that instead. Caught on fast, probably because it’s shorter than ‘James Buchanan.’ The girls seem to like calling me fond little names, though. It’s not like I mind talking to girls, they’re all real nice, I just don’t like them using Steve’s nickname on me.

Speaking of, I’m going out with Belle from English class this Friday. She asked to go dancing, and I like dancing and I like talking to her, so I said yes. Might see if I can get Steve to tag along. The guy could use some good music.

Gonna take my boy out dancing if it kills me (and it might, he says he hates all the music I love),

Bucky

 

(October 29th, 1933)

Dear Diary,

Steve tags along on every last date, which means the girl usually brings a friend too, which makes ma and pa very happy that I’m being ‘responsible with my dates’. They think I’m setting up double dates, but it never really shakes out that way. Either the girl’s friend gets all snobby about dancing with a sick boy, or the girls go off together and Steve and I go off together and we all walk home arm-in-arm like we’ve had the most romantic experience. I love that second kind of date.

Went out again with Belle last week, she tried to get me to neck by the ladies room of the dance hall. Figured that wouldn’t be kind to her, since she had to go home and have dinner with the folks and all that, right? Thankfully, I had to do to get out of it was claim I needed to rush over to Steve at once to make sure the poor guy didn’t feel left out. Men of the world, may I present to you the lifesaver of the century: running off with your friend the second you want out of a situation.

I do worry that Steve feels left out, though. Just last week, Thomas H. made some dig about Steve’s hands being so cold that every gal he tried to get fresh with lost their tits to frostbite. Steve told him he wouldn’t do that to girls, Thomas called him a poof, and said a guy’s balls would probably snap off even quicker.

I told Steve that was a good thing, because clearly Thomas didn’t need his. I dunno, diary. Those jokes get under my skin and burn and burn and burn, sometimes. Makes me feel sick, but hey, at least Steve’s good at elbowing all light at my ribs until I grin to tell him to knock it off. He’s got all these little gestures and movements that he talks through. Elbow to the ribs is ‘you okay?’, shoulder bumping shoulder is ‘quit it’ said all fond with a wrinkled up nose in mock-distaste, shoe scuffing over mine is ‘I’m bored, aren’t you?’

The thing is: none of the girls ever say yes when he asks them out to dance. It’s because of his lungs and heart and spine, I bet. But he’s a real treat to slow dance with, and that’s what’s really romantic, right? After my worse dates, he usually comes over to stay with me for the night (so he doesn’t have to walk home alone) and the second I get out of whatever stuffy shirt and trousers I gussied myself up in, he slides his hands down my arms and gets this slow smile to his lips. Haven’t figured out how he’s talking through that, though. But he dances with me, anyway. It’s good practice.

I think I like dancing with him without any music at all better then I like dancing with a date out where there is good music. I don’t know exactly why I’m writing out all this. Sorry. Yes, I do know why.

God. I need a better hiding place for my diary, I guess.

Bucky

 

(December 12th, 1933)

Dear Diary,

Although I found a safe hiding place for this book, I’m a real dolt about updating this thing as much as I should. I guess I feel like I need important events or realizations to write about, but there’s plenty of events going on lately: tomorrow is the first night of Hanukkah for Steve, which means I’ll have excuses to dote on him and give whatever little gifts I can get him to take. And it’s thirteen days away from Christmas for me, which means I’ll have to debate to myself whether or not I must go to confessional before then.

The issue, dear diary, is not whether or not I have done something wrong: I know I have.

I’ve gone on dates with perfectly nice girls who look just fine and many of them treat me great, and I still went and fell in love with Steve Rogers instead of any of them. That was strange to write. First step to changing oneself is to admit the issue in the first place, I guess.

I feel downright awful about it, though, I swear. I never meant to like him this much, it just happened, and that’s the very reason I’m debating it all: do I really have to confess a sin I never really committed in the first place? I didn’t do anything, I was just a perfectly good friend who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when Cupid flew his smarmy self around.

But diary, don’t worry your patient little head: I’m never gonna tell him about this. He’s one hell of a kind soul and he smiles so hard sometimes that he looks like he’s cracking in two and not one bone in my body would ever allow me to hurt him. What he doesn’t know can’t harm him.

This diary entry is meant to be nothing but an explanation of the terms of my oath: I swear on my life that I will never tell Steven Rogers a word about how much I desperately, strangely love him.

Strike me down now, diary, before I go and screw this up,

Bucky


End file.
